This is the year or the rebirth of news coverage in Africa. It’s driven partly by the growth in non-traditional news stories brought about by blogs, but it is also a part of the greater change on the internet that is taking place. More people are getting involved – and the people are in control.
We’re seeing the beginnings of a new wave of websites and a new way of reading news. Here is a basic rundown of the current new offerings that cover news on a pan-African level:
African Path
Joshua Wanyama started African Path at the beginning of the year. He acts as an editor, bringing in stories from the AP and Reuters, filtering them for the most interesting news in Africa. More importantly, African Path has a stable of 38 bloggers who weigh in on issues that are interesting to people in the diaspora and within Africa.
AfricanLoft
AfricanLoft launched in May, just last month. Imnakoya, a well known African blogger living in the US, has put together a website that aggregates African news, African blogs and creates a sense of community. There are areas to upload images and video, as well as a stable 20 bloggers (which I’m sure will grow soon), that also write about Africa-focused issues.
Afrigator
Afrigator, also launched this year, is a blog aggregator for Africa. The Afrigator team informs me that they are tracking close to 800 blogs from 32 countries. Though the number of bloggers, and those who read African blogs, is still small Afrigator represents the beginnings of a new trend. Where African Path and AfricanLoft pay homage to their blogging roots, Afrigator IS the voice of the African blogosphere.
AllAfrica
I can’t leave AllAfrica out of this mix. They have been part of this transformation, and on the forefront of news coverage in Africa for a long time, specifically they aggregate the newspapers from all over the continent. That’s no small task! They have the best connections in this space, I hope that they continue to innovate so that they remain relevant.
Muti
The last piece of the puzzle is a community-based approach to African news. Muti allows anyone who finds an interesting tid-bit of news on Africa to provide a link to it in one centralized place. It’s a filter for “interesting” for both bloggers and news readers alike.
In Summary
I’m excited about the way technologists are stepping up to solve the information gap in Africa. I’m even more interested in seeing how these different entities will evolve through this year. Knowing most of them personally, and knowing the amount of hard work and time they spend on their websites, I’m convinced that continued growth is in order.
[Update: if you feel that I missed a particular site, especially if it’s not in English, please let me know. I am burdened with a language barrier called French, so many times those great Francophone websites are missed by me.]
June 18, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Thanks for the mention Hash; ’07 has been an exciting year for Africa, its bloggers and “web0crats”, and will even be more exciting if the trends continue, and when the various reforms on the continent (e.g Nigeria) starts yielding dividends.
June 19, 2007 at 3:20 am
I would like to join maybe all of the above aggregators coz am very interested in Afrikan news. Any directions please on their links? Asante sana.
June 19, 2007 at 3:49 am
Thanks for the mention Hash. It will be interesting to see how things will progress going forward for Africa and the exposure the the continent will continually receive. Hopefully our stories will change the whole perception of hopelessness and actually create something of value for our people.
June 19, 2007 at 4:39 am
Nothing again about http://www.akopo.com ?
OK, it’s not from Kenya, South Africa, Ghana or Tanzania, but it exists 😉
I guess you can add i tin your list, eventhough you don’t read it.
Nino
June 19, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Thanks for this list… Very useful.
June 20, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Hash, thanks for this list. There is another site that will be very interesting to watch and participate in also. I would like to add it to your list. It is called smartbiz africa. at http://www.smartbizafrica.com
thanks for the post Hash!
June 21, 2007 at 8:27 am
The media world is changing rapidly. And it should. Here’s a site called http://www.africa-news.net. A complete relaunch of this website is planned for this summer, then Africanews will become truly interactive. But already you can find very interesting webloggers from all over the continent.
Thanks for the list White African!
June 21, 2007 at 9:37 am
Peter, I look forward to seeing the next evolution of Africa-News.net. It’s already got some great content.
June 21, 2007 at 2:22 pm
I like the entire drive towards providing services on the Internet and Hash seems to be a lover of it all right now, who isn’t. No doubt Africa (on the Internet) is growing and I believe any African-related productive concept should be encouraged. I have to mention Meshedlinks – http://www.meshedlinks.com, providing an African Social Bookmarking Service as another good African concept
June 26, 2007 at 7:21 pm
There is also http://www.afrikeo.com , the african netvibes ?
November 11, 2011 at 11:00 am
I’m super, super excited to announce that I’ve joined the board of directors of Code for America, an organization started by Jen Pahlka two years ago aimed at getting some of the smartest and most motivated techies